Wall-Sized 3D Gaming With Nvidia 3D Vision

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A couple of months ago, we built a 3D dual-projector system, just like in movie theaters. Now, we're comparing it to Nvidia's 3D Vision projector-based setup to see which option offers the best consumer-level 3D experience for your living room.

Benchmark Results: Crysis

Crysis remains one of the most beautiful games for the PC, and experiencing it in stereo promises the chance to get away to a virtual tropical island paradise--before it freezes over, that is. Of all the games to play in 3D, Crysis has the potential to provide the richest experience.

We use the following settings for our tests: 1280x720, medium quality, and DirectX 9 mode.

Since 3D Vision doesn't seem to work past the projector's native resolution, we are unable to test at an interpolated 1,080p mode to directly compare performance to our previous results from the dual-projector system.

Game Experience using 3D Vision:

The 3D Vision overlay suggests its 3D compatibility is good and tells us the following: "Rating: Good, Gun sight or pointer is 2D object, Water reflection and clouds are not correct. Set shadows to minimum/shaders and post processing to mainstream or lower. Turn motion blur off. Turn off in-game laser sight (in mouse and keyboard setup). Use Nvidia laser sight." That sure is a lot of info.

Setting shadows to minimum essentially turns them off and the artifacts on water and clouds cannot be fixed with any setting. In my opinion, the good rating is very optimistic for this game. I would have given it a fair rating at best. Turning shadows off strips Crysis of the visual tastiness that makes it a joy to play with in the first place, and the water and sky artifacts remain very distracting.

I do admit, though, that 3D Vision does a better job in this game than the iZ3D drivers. The gun sight view is usable, at least.

Comparing with the Polarized Dual-Projector Drivers:

The only way that I've seen Crysis provide an impressive 3D experience is with the TriDef drivers set to virtual 3D mode, which allows Crysis to retain its beautiful shadows and water effects. Unfortunately, using this mode provides some strange interface anomalies that make the game impossible to play. iZ3D drivers fare worse than 3D Vision does in this title, with similarly poor shadows and a gun sight view that is essentially unusable.

The following are screenshots of the TriDef driver using the Virtual3D option. Unfortunately, we had difficulty capturing 3D images from the iZ3D driver in Crysis:

Don Woligroski
84 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hemburger
    I'd rather wall sized 1080p playback than wall sized 3D playback. = )
    Reply
  • Lmeow
    I would love to have a 3D system like this, unfortunately it's nCredibly expensive...
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    I don't care about 3D.
    Reply
  • infodan
    What about DLP 3D? the projector supports it, DLP-link glasses are cheaper and dont require a transmitter like the nvidia glasses.
    Reply
  • TheStealthyOne
    "The whole experiment consisted of about $2500 worth of hardware and software, NOT including the PC driving the displays."

    I cringed.
    Reply
  • kolsky
    I own a acer h5360 and I agree, it is awesome watching 3d movies on it. 1080p? Dont even notice pixellation at 115 inch screen. 720p is fine and at a great price. 1080p 3d projectors will be extremely expensive for average consumers.
    Reply
  • proxy711
    kolsky 3d is extremely expensive for average consumers.
    Fixed.
    Reply
  • Rickyw972
    Is this projector better than the Mitshibshi 73" 1080p dlp for $1100?
    Reply
  • kolsky
    Im sorry, but 3d is NOT expensive. The acer 5360 can be bought for as low as 580 and the nvidia vision glasses kit can be bought for as low as 150. That is under 1,000... less than the cost of a 3D TV.
    Reply
  • DaFees
    Interesting read, but ultimately all this 3D talk leaves me with a big question. I have a PS3 and if I upgrade my PC to a 3D vision enabled PC is there a projector (perhaps the one discussed in this article) that would allow me to enjoy the 3D from my PS3 and my PC? I understand if I would need a switch between devices or manually switch cables. I know NVIDIA is working on a 3DTV play tech that let's you use the glasses of 3D enabled HDTV to enjoy NVIDIA 3D Vision, but is there a similar option for projectors?
    Reply